


Bespoke

by L_awlietxoxx



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 16:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17206775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_awlietxoxx/pseuds/L_awlietxoxx
Summary: Ben Solo is miserable, stumbling through his life in London without seeing much of anything. Then Christmas sneaks up on him, as does a little shop and a woman who makes custom ornaments to meet the needs of any heart. Suddenly, Ben sees everything.





	Bespoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohwise1ne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohwise1ne/gifts).



> Darling Kat, I hope you enjoy this take on your prompt! I became a bit too engrossed in writing and maybe turned it a bit more serious than you intended? (Sorry the tone of it didn't really fit to include smut ;_;) I decided to set it in London because that's where I get my best Christmas feels, and I loved writing my Reylo bbs in my favorite London spots from my grad school days there. The prompt was adorable and a joy to write!
> 
> Happy Holidays to you and all the lovely CaP ladies! <3

Ben fought the knot of his tie open as if it were likely to strangle him.

Another night emerging from the court chambers long after dark. Another 12-hour day. Almost another week passed in veritable drudgery. 

Rubbing bleary eyes as he ambled down Fleet Street, Ben narrowly made it to the sidewalk before a bus barreled past. Five years living in London, and yet the constant bustle had never ceased to set his teeth on edge and turn his mood surly. Woe to the hapless tourist who might have tried approaching him for directions tonight. 

With nothing to rush home to but a mostly empty and too-clean flat in Kensington, Ben threaded through the crowded sidewalks towards a dim, tiny side street. He planned to follow the alley to the dusty old Barristers’ pub tucked back beyond the reach of wayfaring tourists. As usual, he expected to find a few of his fellow paralegals deep in their cups, mourning the loss of all joy and purpose in their own lives while scoffing at Ben’s misery. 

_“Come down from Oxford and get set up right pretty with Snoke right away. Got it real hard, don’t you?”_

Maybe tonight, Ben would do better taking his drink to the dark corner tables, where struggling students from King’s College and LSE sought misguided refuge from their nearby libraries.

It really was a depressing spot, wasn’t it? Ben knew the place and the drink would do absolutely nothing to improve his desolate headspace, but at the same time he came to the thoroughly depressing realization that there was nowhere else he would rather go; Nowhere else he could think to go.

Noticing a throng of tourists clustered near the alley’s entrance (“Stupid walking tours,” he muttered to himself), Ben ducked into another parallel side street. He was halfway to the pub when a brightly lit storefront cut through the hazy gloom of the evening.

Ben found his steps slowing, then stopping altogether. He actually had to blink his eyes a few times to clear them enough to read the sign hanging in the window. (A long day of squinting at tiny print, alongside the illumination of the shop window like a spotlight in the dark, and Ben felt decades older than his 27 years.)

“Custom Decorations and Hand-Made Furnishings,” read the shop window in luminescent lettering. The front window was nearly completely filled by a massive, bushy Christmas tree, wrapped in countless strands of twinkling nights. Almost every branch wore an ornament, bauble, or star. No two looked alike, yet each alone seemed worthy of admiring.

Ben stared at the tree for a long moment before he remembered the date. Right – December 1st. 

He stood there for a long moment – Arrested by the sight and suddenly wholly disconnected from the present moment and all its dreary burdens. 

For a powerful, too-real flash of a moment, he was a boy again. His mother had loved to pick out oversized trees just like this one – So wide and full his father would struggle to fit them through the door. As a child, he would help his mother take out the countless boxes of ornaments she’d collected throughout her life. She would help him reach his favorite ones up to the highest branches, recounting for him the countless stories of where she’d acquired each one. 

Ben had loved those days of decorating the tree with his mother; He had loved hearing her share all the assorted, mismatched experiences of her life. He was loved watching them all come together in a twinkling, magnificent tree.

Ben realized with a bitter pang that he had nearly forgotten those days. Since the move to the UK when he was 16, nothing had been easy or heartwarming with his parents any more. 

He’d come to realize with age that part of the reason had been his own teenaged belligerence against his parents’ decision to make such a drastic change. But regardless of his own poor reception of their decision, his sense of having been neglected remained. The year after his acceptance notice from Oxford arrived and his parents sent him off by train (“Sorry, Ben, we’re simply too busy with our new jobs”) had been the loneliest and hardest of his life.

But the sight of that tree in the window – Decorated with lovingly mismatched ornaments – kindled a boyhood awareness in Ben that gifted warmth he’d long forgotten. He still saw his parents for Christmases (one of the few times in the year), but the stilted, forced holidays they now shared had long banished the memories of his youth. 

Memories of a time when he hadn’t felt so terribly disillusioned with every single part of his isolated, letdown life. 

Then, as Ben watched the storefront for another moment, she came into view. 

She’d been obscured behind the branches, but now Ben saw her drag a chair up close to the tree and clamber onto it. An illuminated star in hand, she reached the topper towards the tree’s highest point, balancing precariously on the chair’s edge. 

Ben watched her without making a conscious decision to do so. But suddenly, she was all he could see. The Christmas tree blinked from existence, outshone. The sore weight he’d been carrying in his shoulders after bending over desks all day drifted off, forgotten. He straightened up fully for what might have been the first time all day. 

The woman was petite, wearing a worn sweater rolled up to her elbows for the arduous task of tree decorating. Logically, Ben knew it was the tree lights reflecting off her face, but her eyes and the color in her cheeks seemed to radiate from within. She smiled to herself as she lovingly straightened a few ornaments that had been knocked askance. 

At once, Ben could have sworn he were standing in a patch of sunlight – An impossibility in a dark, cloudy December evening in London. But Ben’s entire perception seemed filled by the sight of her, and all laments and impossibilities became just that – Impossible.

The top half of her chestnut hair tied into a bun, she tossed the lower half over her shoulder. Biting her lip, the young woman reached more determinedly towards the top of the tree. She nearly succeeded in affixing the star, when the chair beneath her feet gave a wobbling lurch. She righted herself just in time to avoid tumbling to the floor. Ben barely registered the maneuver. He was already hurrying to the front door of the shop.

The woman turned at the chime of the door, nearly toppling the chair a second time.

“Good evening, sir. How may I help…”

“Let me do that.”

Her beaming smile of welcome dimmed slightly in surprise. Ben was both relieved and disappointed. Her smile, aimed at him, had been almost brighter than he could bear. 

“The… star?” she asked in puzzlement, holding up the ornament still flashing in her hand.

“Yes. I saw you through the window. You almost went down with the chair.”

Despite how his heart pounded, Ben forced his usually hypercritical, over-anxious mind to keep quiet. He allowed none of the self-conscious panic that might have stopped him from barging into the store, had Ben given it half a moment of attention. Instead, Ben let the surprised gaze of her soft, chocolate eyes fill him with gentle purpose. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at peace; The last time everything had seemed so clear.

His cynical inner voices blessedly silenced for once, Ben astounded himself by taking a step towards the chair she was balanced on and holding up his hand to her. 

“Come down from there. Let me.”

The woman blinked, her surveying eyes roving from his face to his hand and back again.

Ben felt as if he were outside himself. He was never this forward with women. Not that offering to lend his considerable height to her tree decorating efforts necessarily insinuated his interest in her at all… But he would be hard pressed to remember the last time he had approached a woman – Much less one so effortlessly beautiful. In a tattered sweater, with disheveled hair, the lingering creases of dimples in her cheeks, and sparkling eyes that defied classification between green or hazel. 

After her eyes traveled back to Ben’s face one last time, her smile finally returned.

“I suppose you are… better equipped for the task at hand.”

Ben noticed her bite her lip again as she placed her hand in his to steady her step down from the chair. Then she handed him the glowing star. She pointed straight up at the tree’s topmost branch.

“It has to go all the way at the top. Otherwise the tree won’t be symmetrical.”

“We couldn’t have that,” Ben said, a smile rising to his own mouth without any of its usual effort.

Just as the woman was about to parse his tone (was he mocking her?), Ben stepped onto the chair himself. For him, it acted more as a footstool. Then it was a simple matter for him to attach the star to the tree’s top point. 

Ben looked down, and found her face lit up in pure wonder as she beheld the flawless tree. It seemed strange to be looking down on her from the height of the chair, when she was the source of the luminous warmth filling every corner of the shop. The soothing, uncomplicated delight brimming from her settled into Ben’s being, making him utterly not himself – Making him a calmer, surer person he hardly recognized. A person he desperately wished he could be.

The woman turned the spotlight of her smile upon Ben, who quickly looked elsewhere, trying valiantly to suppress the warmth he felt rising in his face. Luckily, she didn’t seem to notice. She reached over to lift a box of meticulously detailed ornaments from a table beside the tree.

“While you’re up there… Would you mind putting these up around the top?”

Ben blinked, and now it was his turn to freeze on the chair, looking between her face and the box in her arms. 

“What if I can’t do it symmetrically?”

She rolled her eyes with a scoff of laughter. “You did the star perfectly, so I have faith. Besides, I’ll be right here to supervise.”

She held the box up higher, and beamed at him with a pleading look over the top. Ben didn’t want to mess up the tree on which she had evidently expended so much effort, but he wanted far less to disappoint her – Or to hasten the time when he would have to depart from her.

“Well, while I’m already up here…” Ben pretended to capitulate as he reached down to pluck an ornament from the box.

That was how Ben spent half an hour in the tiny Christmas shop, helping the woman put the final decorating touches on her tree – His original plan to make for the dank pub where he could nurse his sorrows quite forgotten.

Finally, once the box was empty and Ben had redistributed a few ornaments according to her instructions, he stepped down from the chair to gaze up at the tree with her. 

“Perfect. I think it’s my best tree ever,” she declared, and Ben didn’t have to look at her to hear the exuberance in her voice. 

He was still gazing at the tree himself. The Christmas trees of his youth that he’d so loved seemed to be dancing before his eyes. He couldn’t believe how long it had been; Couldn’t believe he forgot what this felt like…

“Oh!” the woman exclaimed suddenly at his side, making him abruptly turn to her. To his dismay, Ben swore he felt his face growing hot again as he looked down at her in proximity close enough to see the freckles dusted across her cheeks and oh, he really couldn’t decide if her eyes were green or hazel…

“Goodness, I’ve been ordering you about and haven’t even introduced myself.” She stuck her hand out to him with a wide smile. “I’m Rey. This is my shop.”

Ben carefully slid his hand into hers, almost certainly overthinking the speed and grip of the handshake. “Ben.”

“Ben, thank you so much for helping me out. I might have slipped over off the chair and broken something, if not for you. I hope I didn’t keep you if you have somewhere to be.”

Internally, Ben almost gave a hollow laugh. “Oh, no. I work up at the Royal Courts of Justice and I was just on my way home.”

Rey gave him a calculating look, seeming intrigued. “You sound American – If I may be so bold to say. How’d you get to work there?”

Ben smiled wryly. “Indeed, the terrible accent always gives me away. My family moved here when I was younger and I studied law at Oxford. After that, a Queen’s Counsel took me on as a paralegal. We spend most days in court rather than the office.”

Rey still watched him keenly, but seemed unsure what to say to all of that. Instead, her smile turned teasing. She knew next to nothing about law, but she did know a thing or two about tall, learned but unassuming men who might be just her type.

“Sounds like you earned your place. But I never said the accent was bad. Maybe I like it.”

Now, it was a losing battle between Ben and the color in his face. She laughed a little, enamored, though Ben thought she was probably just laughing at him in ridicule. 

“Ben, let me thank you for helping me. I know silly decorations and knick-knacks probably aren’t really the thing for a legal professional like yourself, but if you pick something out, let me give it to you free of charge.”

For the first time since Ben walked through the door, Rey momentarily seemed something other than jubilant and confident. Her voice had trailed off, softer towards the end of the offer, as if embarrassed by its deficiency. 

Ben looked at her and set his mouth with purpose. “That sounds wonderful.”

Walking into this shop was the first time in a long while that Ben could remember feeling light and untroubled like this. Of course, he wanted to take some small piece of this feeling home with him. (Of course, he wanted something tangible to remind him of her.)

Rey looked up at him again, her smile cautiously returning. “Yeah? Well, pick anything. Really.”

While Rey gathered the empty ornament boxes from the table beside the tree, Ben circled through the small, cozy shop. He stopped before a display just beside the counter, looking for a long while into a display case holding the most stunningly decorated tree ornaments he had ever seen.

“Those are examples of my custom ornaments,” Rey explained as she ducked behind the counter, shoving the empty boxes out of sight. 

“You made these yourself?” Ben asked, astonished.

Rey’s nodding head popped back up behind the counter. “Mm-hm, I make them on commission.”

Ben turned back to the display case with fresh amazement. These were more beautiful than any of the ones he remembered from his mother’s collection. 

What if this year, Ben brought something other than a vintage bottle of wine to the obligatory visit to his parents’ house on Christmas Day? Would his bit of effort perhaps do something to ease the uncomfortable strain that seemed to grow between them every year?

Before Ben said anything, Rey came over to his side before the display. “These orders are usually how I earn the most during the holidays, but I’d be happy to make one for you.”

That’s when Ben noticed the sign of price estimates above the display: Beginning at 100 pounds and going up. His mouth falls open slightly, not at the prices themselves, but at the fact that he nearly cheated her out of so much.

“Nonsense, of course I’ll pay.”

“Really, I wouldn’t mind-…”

“Rey, you can thank me by letting me pay you,” Ben said just firmly enough to quell Rey’s protests. 

Although it wasn’t his tone that made Rey fall silent, struck. Rather, it was the sound of Ben saying her name for the first time. (Unbeknownst to him.)

“Okay, if that’s what you’d like. Although…” Rey trailed off for a moment. Ben lifted an eyebrow, silently prompting her. “Well, these commissions are usually… individualized and quite personal.”

“Personal?” Ben echoed, fighting down the returning warmth in his face.

Rey nodded. “When I take an order for a custom ornament, I usually spend some time with the person to figure out exactly what they want; To learn exactly who it’s for and what the ornament is meant to say.” 

“Oh,” Ben said immediately, then internally kicked himself for not expressing his rising excitement more eloquently. “Well. That sounds fine.” Ben kicked himself again. Damn it. 

Rey gave him a look half amused and half puzzled. She seemed to be trying to read him, but evidently her efforts were being frustrated.

“Right. Shall we set an appointment, or…”

Swallowing hard and throwing all caution to the wind, Ben decided to express exactly what it was he wanted to take from this store with him – Exactly what had captured his interest most. 

“Or, we could discuss the order this evening? If you have the time, that is.”

Again, Ben hardly recognized himself in the influence of this woman’s presence.

That made Rey fall silent for a beat, blinking up at him. Ben clenched his teeth, already regretting his misguided, clearly unwelcome moment of bravery.

That was, until Rey’s smile ignited again a moment later, in full force. “Sure. I can close up a little early tonight.”

~

Maybe, Ben hadn’t fully thought this through. Suddenly he found himself sitting across the table from the most enchanting woman he’d ever met, being asked to talk about the stilted relationship with his parents he’d discussed with no one in years. 

Rey rested her chin on the backs of her fingers, regarding him across the table in the small restaurant. 

“So, why do you think this would be a good gift for your mother?”

Ben looked down, fiddling with the napkin folded on the table before him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at anyone when confronting the challenge of dredging up memories purposefully buried; Much less looking at Rey, who would send his thoughts careening off in another, entirely unhelpful direction. 

He was pleasantly surprised to find the bitter taste of old injuries remained at bay as he called his parents to mind. As if they were still standing in her twinkling, tinsel-covered shop, Rey’s presence seemed to soothe the world’s edges away from his skin. 

“As a child, I used to help her decorate our tree every year. It’s one of the few fond family memories I have. She has this massive collection of ornaments she’s collected her whole life long. They all have special meaning to her. I never thought to give her one to add to it, but… Maybe it’ll give her a reason to smile when she thinks of me.”

Ben felt supremely stupid as soon as the words left his mouth. What was wrong with him? Earlier, he’d been so dignified around Rey, not knowing where the courage came from but feeling it at his fingertips when he looked at her. Now, she asked him one personal question and he split open like a roasted chestnut. Ben couldn’t recall thinking such things even to himself…

Rey’s gentle voice pulled him back from the mire. “You’re a twenty-something paralegal working for one of the country’s most revered lawyers. You came through Oxford. How is she not already straining her face smiling about you?”

As far as Ben could tell, Rey’s question was genuinely incredulous. Ben looked up at her and found himself somehow smiling. 

“Twenty-seven.”

Maybe she was fishing for his age, maybe she wasn’t, but either way her smile sparkled at him for a flash. Ben reveled in it. 

He forced himself back on track, even though it wasn’t nearly as pleasant a place as her glow.

“Once I grew up, it became exceedingly hard to make her smile. She and my father made their careers the priority when we moved here to the UK. I was sixteen and really didn’t want to come. As I neared college in the US, we’d started fighting a lot about what I was going to do with my life. But when we moved so suddenly, I got cut off from all my ideas as well – About going to school across the country with friends, maybe to art rather than law school. 

“Then I was suddenly here, less than a year away from University, with no friends and no idea how schools and certifications even worked here. So I went the only route I knew – The only one my parents laid in front of me. But I was so angry and bitter about taking that path, I wouldn’t do it to make them proud. 

“Yes, I did well, but I didn’t let them share in it. They didn’t go to Oxford with me the first time to move me in, so after that I never let them come visit. I hardly saw them for years, until I moved to London for work and Mother started insisting I come by for holidays. By then, I was tired of being resentful.”

The food came, and Rey looked troubled and thoughtful through her first bites.

“If I can weigh in… It sounds like you’re looking for a gift that says it’s time for you all to start over, because you’re ready to move ahead if they are.”

Ben looked up from his plate, raising an eyebrow. “You can say that with an ornament?”

Smiling her glimmering smile, Rey reached across to pat the back of Ben’s hand. “My custom ornaments can say just about anything.”

Their eyes caught for a suspended moment. Without meaning to, Rey’s hand remained resting over Ben’s. Ben was just mustering the courage to turn his hand over so his fingers could meet hers, but she withdrew her hand a moment too soon.

“When will you want it finished?” Rey asked, clearing her throat before she spoke. Ben wasn’t sure if he was imagining the pink sheen to her cheeks as she twirled her fork above her plate. 

“It’s only December first,” Ben replied. “I won’t see her until Christmas Day. How much time do you need?”

Rey bit her lip, considering. Ben tried not to stare.

“One week.” Looking down at her plate again, she added innocently, “If you leave me your phone number, I’ll call when it’s done for you to pick it up.”

Ben’s mind whirled. He didn’t think he imagined the coy tone of her request. Of course, it could have simply been a business request, but Ben scrambled to make the most use of it, regardless. He prayed he could be suave for just one more minute, like back in the shop.

“Better yet…” Ben produced his phone from his pocket, unlocked the screen, tapped a few times, then spun it towards her. “Give me yours? I’ll text you so you get mine.”

Rey blinked once, very slowly, and Ben’s chest blew up in panic. He should have known he’d misread things. How could he have thought she’d even be interested…

“Sounds brilliant.”

Ben wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but then sure enough, his phone was in her hands and she was tapping numbers in. Like a massive idiot, he kept his hand outstretched and frozen until she replaced his phone.

“I messaged myself for the number,” she said as her fingers left his.

“Brilliant,” he echoed dumbly, then winced at how clunky the word landed in his accent, certainly not built for the same lilting tones her mouth seemed to create so effortlessly. The same tones that were lodging so insistently in Ben’s chest.

Rey giggled at him a little, and for the first time in a long, long while, Ben was desperately glad to be himself. 

~

Two days. 

It had been two days since Ben wandered into Rey’s shop, and he’d spent the majority of them staring at the digits of her phone number. He’d managed the feat of getting her number, but so far had made no use of the accomplishment. 

She’d initially asked for his number so she could notify him when his order was ready, and every time his thumbs hovered over a message to her, he’d relapse into fretting that business was really all she’d had in mind. But then he’d remember how she smiled at him as she slid his phone from his hand, and he’d become too addled with infatuation to write anything coherent, much less witty.

On the third day, Ben’s nerves about speaking to her were replaced with panic. The week was half over. Soon, she’d be calling to notify him his order was ready for pick up, and that would be it - The transaction completed with nothing else between them. Ben remembered - yearned for - how calm and reassured he’d felt in her glowing presence, his usual anxieties at bay. He couldn’t let another day pass. 

At lunch, he stepped outside into the gardens behind the Courts, walking a bit towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the quieter squares, to make sure no one would interrupt him. He pulled up her number again (though he could almost certainly recall it from memory by now), thought of her warm, soft eyes, and dialed.

“Hi there, Ben?”

The inflection of a question. She was perplexed why he was calling. Ben scuffed his shoe against the pebbles lining the garden path, taking a deep breath.

“Yes, it’s Ben. Sorry if I’m calling at a bad time-...”

“Not at all. It’s just funny because I’m working on your ornament right now, actually.”

“Oh? That is funny.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be ready until Friday though, at the earliest.”

“Oh, that’s okay. That’s completely fine.”

A beat of extended silence. Ben’s heart was running laps in record time. Here was the expectant moment, when he told her why he’d called. Why he’d been thinking of her constantly. 

Instead, what came out of his mouth was: “Actually, I’ve been thinking I should order a set.”

~

Rey knew she was spending far too much time on Ben’s order. The design had woven itself together in her mind almost effortlessly as she had listened to him talk about his past and his family. Now, bent over her work station, her hands sticky with glue and all shades of glitters, her mind poured over not only his words, but his gentle yet vaguely sad eyes; His tall, broad frame that might have been intimidating, had it not been hunched under the weight of burdens known only to him; The way his manner around her had vacillated between diffident and brief surges of courteous fervency. 

She hadn’t known what to make of him, when he first appeared in her shop demanding to help her put up the star. It seemed a kind enough offer, but he’d made it so seriously. At first, she’d been embarrassed – Thinking she’d made a spectacle of herself through the window, balancing precariously on a chair, looking ridiculous until this conveniently tall stranger took pity on her.

But then he’d gotten up on the chair himself. Then he’d made an attempt at a joke and shown a cautious, skittish smile, and Rey had known he was harmless. Suddenly, the shop seemed more homely, with him filling it. So tall, he had to bend down under the doorways.

Rey’s neck was beginning to ache from bending over the table for so long, to get everything just right... That’s when her phone rang, and she scrambled for a rag to wipe the glue from her fingers before diving for the phone lighting up with his name.

He wanted to order a set. She probably didn’t need to hold a whole new consultation with him for it, but her mouth raced right ahead, heedless: “You know the Fleet Street Press cafe, across from the Royal Courts? With the really cozy basement room?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s meet there tonight to discuss the new piece?”

“Sure. Yes. Perfect.”

“Brilliant, see you there at 6?”

“Right. Until then.”

Rey hung up the phone smiling to herself, heart twirling for no good reason.

~

Ben made a face when Rey placed her order for a latte with double syrup and whipped cream. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, smoothly sliding his card to the barista to pay for both of their drinks. She slapped his arm in admonishment.

“This is technically a business meeting, so I should be...”

“A business meeting at my request. My expense.”

Ben had been frustrated with himself all afternoon for losing his nerve on the phone with her earlier. A business meeting certainly hadn’t been what he’d had in mind. Yet nonetheless, the way she pretended to sigh and huff ‘Fine’ as she nudged his arm again made Ben’s heart skip like no business meeting ever had.

Downstairs, settled into two plush leather chairs close beside each other with drinks in hand, Rey asked with comfort that came perhaps too easily, “How was the work day?”

Ben hunched in in himself a bit more than usual, eyes going downcast. “Rough. You don’t really want to hear about it.”

Rey surveyed him for a moment as she sipped at her sweet, creamy drink. She watched how his morose gaze seemed seconds away from drowning in the black coffee clutched between his hands. Rey found that actually, she really did want to hear.

“It can help ease the worry - Talking about it. Don’t keep everything locked inside.” 

Ben looked up at her, shoulders straightening slightly and puzzled surprise in his eyes. Before she started blushing, Rey took another sip from her mug and added, “Besides, it’ll help me with the order.”

Half of Ben’s mouth turned upward. “Right. The order.” The look they shared was far too warm and conspiratorial to maintain the illusion. 

Ben found he didn’t mind unspooling the stresses of the day; And somehow, the attentive gaze of her chocolate eyes and her slight nods made all the talking just fine.  
He talked for a while, morphing into the retelling of not only today’s cases, but the longer-term, mounting problems of trying to please Queen’s Counsel Snoke, who was endlessly scornful and critical, and how Ben was finding it harder and harder to picture himself taking on a solicitor role in the future, though that was already the path he’d chosen in school. 

Rey listened and took note of everything. But one thing stood out most. One thing he didn’t say precisely with words, but Rey could hear clearly.

He was lonely. Whether his anxieties kept him from trusting and forming connections, or if the demands of his job had simply isolated him while monopolizing his time, Rey couldn’t quite tell. Perhaps the reason was a combination of both. But either way, she could tell in the way his worries all spilled out that he wasn’t used to voicing them. She could tell the new exercise was doing him good. 

Rey was just tipping her mug back to reach all the syrupy goodness, when Ben abruptly went silent. She lowered her mug to see him, and found him looking appalled. 

“God, I’m sorry. I’ve just been going on...”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind listening, really, and it helps me with the details of the ornament designs.”

Rey leaned in to pat his knee once in reassurance. Ben watched her hand withdraw again, locked in a bitter, silent debate. Finally, he said with a bit of an awkward start, “I know I’m the one who’s been talking to help you with the ornament designs, but it’s getting terribly one-sided now. Why don’t you tell me about your shop?”

Rey quirked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really,” Ben affirmed immediately, praying this would lead to his chance to get to know her better (and put an end to his own pathetic pity party).

“Okay. I’ll tell you about the shop, but I have an idea first,” she announced, a smile flooding from her face. Ben’s heart grew an extra size at the sight of it. Somehow, he’d missed it terribly. “It’s December, which means all my favorite Christmas lights in the area are lit up now. Will you walk with me to see some while I tell you?”

Ben looked genuinely astonished by the request. Now it was his turn to ask, “Really?”

“Really,” Rey confirmed, bouncing upright in her chair. She took the liberty of removing Ben’s empty cup from his hands and placing it aside on a table. “I suspect it’ll do you good.”

Without missing a beat, or letting the amazed look on Ben’s face make her hesitate, Rey seized both his hands and pulled him up beside her from his chair. 

“I just go walk to see them whenever I’m having a bad day,” Rey said, turning to gather her coat and hat and hide the fact that she might have been blushing ever so slightly. She’d let go quickly, but his hands had felt nice – Warm and so wide. Ben moved a bit more slowly as he pulled on his own dark wool coat. He found it hard to believe Rey ever had bad days; That her natural light ever dimmed. 

“Let’s make sure you’ve got something nicer to look at than just the inside of courtrooms,” Rey said lightly as they ascended the stairs. 

She knew this had nothing whatsoever to do with his order. This had nothing to do with color schemes, bauble shapes, or the sentiments the gift would be intended to convey. Rey found she just wanted to do it for him. Ben certainly seemed to have a thoughtful side – Someone who could appreciate beauty and sensitivity in life, if only his vision wasn’t clouded by his melancholy. Rey thought he seemed to have stopped looking for beauty in the world around him, and long forgotten how much resided within himself. 

Rey found herself wanting to open his eyes again. Now, she could tell how rare his look of enchantment had been, when he’d first come into her shop and looked at her up on her chair, offering his help. She wanted to see his eyes come to life like that again.

_I already do_ , Ben thought on the stairs behind her, just barely catching the words behind his lips. 

~

“I walk past here all the time, but never really looked in.”

Rey tut-tutted, shaking her head in disapproval as they walked beneath the low entrance arches leading to the Somerset House open-air ice skating rink. “You work practically right across the street, and you’ve been missing a London Christmas gem.”

Ben had never particularly enjoyed ice-skating, but even he had to admit the giant Christmas tree twinkling in the center of the wide courtyard between aged stone buildings made for a stunning sight. Just beside the tree, skaters circled the rink beneath the soft brush of colored lights, turning the ice from holly green to Christmas bow red. 

“I’ve only gone skating here a few times, but I like to just walk through now and then,” Rey said with a smile, lights twinkling in her eyes. “Something tells me you’re probably not an avid skater yourself?”

Ben snickered as he looked down at her. “Was it the ungainly height that gave me away?”

“That, and you being Mr. Ultra-Serious Lawyer.” Rey pitched the final words in a robotic tone, drawing herself up tall and scrunching her face in what was meant to be an approximation of Ben in court. Ben’s laugh took him utterly by surprise. Rey lapsed back into her floating smiles, giggling a little in turn and giving Ben a nudge with her elbow.

“I do have fun. Occasionally.”

“Oh, really? Doing what exactly?”

Ben narrowed his eyes playfully and shook his head. “Oh, no. You’re throwing distraction tactics. We were going to talk about you now.”

“Clever save, Ben.”

Suddenly, he was smiling at her in full. Rey found herself wholly unprepared for the splendor that unfurled in her chest at the sight. 

“We’d best get walking, we’ll need more lights for all that talk.”

Rey and Ben swerved through throngs of tourists, groups of boisterous students, and bustling business people as they made their way down the Strand. The canopy of moving lights above the main, historical thoroughfare changed a bit each year. This year, illuminated angels floated on moving wings, while dancing strands of icicle lights lit up the night air.

“We’ll walk up towards Covent Garden, alright?” Rey had to ask loudly over the traffic. “Bit quieter there.”

Ben nodded. They watched the black cabs and buses racing by, waiting for the moment they could scurry across the wide street. Without really meaning to, Ben’s hand brushed the small of Rey’s back as they crossed. She didn’t mind. 

Once they were heading up one of the smaller streets towards Covent Garden, Rey had the chance to talk. 

“I was in foster care for most of my life. I don’t know who my parents are or why they did what they did, but putting me up for adoption didn’t seem to have worked. I bounced around from house to house all throughout school. None of them were really home.”

Ben’s steps stalled beside her. When Rey looked back, he fixed her with a look of almost outraged incredulity. He opened his mouth. A multitude of reactions wanted to flood out. 

First, he wanted to call her bluff. Because there was no, _no_ way anyone could have abandoned someone like Rey – Who must have been a child of such sunlight and purity. Then, Ben wanted to insist that she must know _something_ about her parents. Surely, she must want to hunt them down and demand why. Lastly, once his off-guard spark of fury dimmed, a too-familiar, consoling tenderness rose in him. For a beat, it built insistently, spurring him to take her in his arms and whisper silly, sentimental things that shouldn’t, by all logic, already come so naturally.

Finally, Ben closed his mouth and said nothing. It was all laughably inadequate, anyway. 

Rey had watched his extended moment of internal struggle. Her heart thudded in bittersweet appreciation, as she could see how difficult it seemed to be for Ben to accept what he’d just heard. She didn’t tell many people the sob story of her life. She wanted no one’s pity. Better yet, she wanted to believe she’d grown past all that, and the retelling was only some other girl’s story.

And yet, when she watched Ben’s lips press together after reaching the truth that there were no words truly adequate, Rey found herself looking at the ground with stinging eyes for a moment. The look in his eyes – boundless sympathy mingled with awe-struck regard – had touched a deep internal space she didn’t often examine. 

She couldn’t quite look into his face, but stepped closer to him. “Let’s keep going,” she murmured. His hands rested at his sides, rather than in pockets. Rey slid her hand into one of his before continuing along the sidewalk, wordless. It soothed her to find his hand just as large and warm as she remembered. Ben quickly fell into step beside her, his hand enveloping her smaller fingers immediately.

It was better than even the warmest mittens.

“How did you end up in London?” he asked, voice slightly strained. 

“I always told myself I’d move here after school, and make my own way. It was damn hard at first, waitressing for a few years and barely making enough to rent one room while I saved whatever was left. I already had the idea of opening my own shop, where I could sell different creations throughout the year. 

“Two years ago, I finally had enough money to start renting the space for my shop. And there’s a small flat right above the shop I rent too, so it’s easy to make the orders in my workspace there and not have to worry about transporting and possibly damaging them. So, it seemed perfect…”

“Seemed?”

Rey gave an audible sigh. “The landlord’s becoming quite a jerk lately. He’s been raising the rent almost every month with no warning.”

Ben’s brow turned thunderous. “Rey… I don’t think that’s legal.”

Rey waved the hand Ben wasn’t holding in the air in front of her. “I don’t want to make trouble. I’ve finally got everything set up in the shop, and a good client base. It would disrupt everything if I had to move, and I can’t really afford that. And the set-up with the flat on top really is perfect.”

Ben bit his lip against pressing the point. It was her life and her decision to make. 

By now, the two were approaching the piazza of Covent Garden. Along the outside of the shops, garlands and lights were strung from pillar to pillar, and in every window. Past the open pillars, massive, gleaming Christmas baubles and lights arranged like bundles of mistletoe hung above the stalls and walkways. 

While Ben was still frowning, in troubled thought about Rey’s landlord, Rey had already floated past her own concerns. It was a talent of hers, not to be weighed down. 

“Let’s go around to the swings!” she said, pulling Ben with her until the sight of the towering, illuminated Christmas tree beside the piazza banished his own worries as well. 

Or perhaps, it was more the proximity of Rey’s lightness of being; The small-sized but indomitable warmth of her hand within his own.

A moment later, Rey was pulling him down beside her in one of the swinging wooden benches draped in garlands and ivy. 

“Would you believe I didn’t even know these were here?” Ben admitted, just for something to say when he suddenly found himself sitting very, _very_ close to Rey’s side – His mouth suddenly dry and pulse pounding in his ears. 

“No, I can’t believe anyone would live such a sad, sad life without a single Christmas swing in sight.”

To deliver the joke, Rey had to tilt her head back to look up into his face. Ben was powerless to look away, overwhelmed as he was by the mirth glowing in her eyes and the upturned corners of her mouth. 

Moved by an instinctive, consuming urge that dodged rational thought entirely, Ben’s gaze glued to Rey’s lips. The bench seemed to be tipping sideways beneath him, drawing him into her inexorable gravity.

Somehow, Rey hadn’t hesitated in settling against Ben’s warmth when they sat down. She’d held his hand as if it were a habit hardly needing thinking on. In the bench beneath the garlands, the shape of him at her side was a comfort just as sweet and natural as the Christmas lights she so loved.

She could tell Ben wasn’t the type to easily confide in others. No matter if she’d asked her questions with an initial eye for designing his order, Rey had been touched by his candor. Her follow-up questions had forgotten all initial business; As she became drawn in by his sensitive self-reflection. Over their shared dinner a few nights before, she had watched Ben unravel hidden layers of himself through the introspection he shared with her. She’d wanted to ask the questions that resolved him – That smoothed the crease between his eyes and the lost frown on his lips. 

Speaking of those lips… Ben had unmistakably leaned closer, but some barrier of self-doubt held him back. She dearly wanted to know if his lips felt as soft and full as they looked; If they tasted as sweet…

But while Ben had shown himself to be someone who kept silent when at a loss for what to say, Rey was the precise opposite, with a terrible habit of babbling her way through moments of immensity. 

“I think there’s mistletoe,” Rey mumbled, pointing one finger upwards to the garlands twined above their heads. “Perfect, really. I already planned on working mistletoe patterns into one of your ornaments. Seemed to fit well.”

Ben’s gaze followed Rey’s gesture. When he looked up, Rey watched his Adam’s apple swallow with difficulty as he straightened up where he sat.

Already, Rey’s heart sank, frustration at herself flaring. _Why do I have such an idiotic big mouth?_

“My ornaments. Right.” 

Ben sounded dazed when he spoke, more to himself than to Rey. As if reminding himself of something bitter. He cleared his throat, shifting on the bench slightly as the world righted himself into normal, explainable patterns. He’d been a fool, really, to think…

He suddenly felt acutely embarrassed, his prior ease in Rey’s presence slipping away. God, she probably thought him desperate and pathetic. Not that she would be mistaken, Ben thought despondently. 

“Do you think you’ve gotten everything you need for the designs?” Ben’s voice wasn’t frustrated or bitter, only distant. He looked up the street towards the bustling tube station, unable to look directly at her again. 

Just what had he thought would happen tonight? What did he think this was, with her? He’d been too much of a damn coward on the phone to tell her another order certainly wasn’t the reason he’d wanted to see her again. But even if he had… Why should she care? Why would she ever have any interest in his miserable life, besides the backstory she needed to fill a bespoke order? 

“Um. Yes, I think so.” 

Ben fiddled with the buttons on his coat as he stood up from the bench, purposefully averting his eyes.

“When should I come pick them up?”

Rey took a long while to answer, distracted by wracking her brain for something to say that would coax him close to her again. Some way to admit that, actually, since the moment she saw him tonight, she’d almost forgotten about his order completely…

Still frustrated with herself, Rey managed only, “Friday evening, if that works for you?”

Ben nodded, still looking down towards his shoes rather than at her.

“I’ll come by your shop.” Ben shifted slightly where he stood, rubbing the toes of his shoes against the pavement as he debated what to say in parting. “Thanks for tonight,” he finally murmured, only just loud enough for Rey to hear over the din of the tourists and shoppers. He figured that if she already thought him laughable, there was really no harm in digging himself a bit further. “For showing me the lights, and… listening.”

Because the truth was, it had meant a great deal to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d breathed so easily. The last time he’d spoken freely to someone without fear of censure. 

“Of course. Thank you, too,” Rey said, feeling awkward around him for the first time. Though it wasn’t any fault of his – Rey knew the mistake had been entirely her own doing. 

Rey found herself desperately wishing Ben would look up at her. She had no hope of putting to words the nonsensical, dizzying things that ignited in her when he was near. She hoped she could express it all with a smile. She wanted to see one more time the way his eyes always seemed to soften in wonder each time he looked at her. She wanted to see _him_ smile, just one more time tonight…

But Ben only nodded abruptly, his head ducking in lower. 

“See you Friday.” 

And then he turned and strode off towards the tube station, his hands burrowed in his pockets and shoulders hunched.

Rey leaned back on the bench, sighing. She should have been more mindful of how easily he seemed to bruise. He carried so many burdens; So much doubt and unfulfillment and fragility. How could it be that she’d only spent two evenings with him, and yet saw him so clearly? How could she feel such a need to protect him, to soothe his loneliness, and patch the holes in his soul?

~

Ben did his best to temper the rush of anxiety when he saw his mother’s name flash on his phone. 

“Ben, you’ll come by on Christmas Day, right?”

“Sure, Mother.”

“We’ll have dinner early, so come around 3.”

“Right.”

“Bring your outdoor ware, since I think your Father might want to go shooting.”

Just _marvelous._ “Fine.”

“And do you have a lady friend to bring this year, Ben? You know you’re not getting any younger.”

“Well aware of that, Mother, but no, I don’t. Snoke keeps me far too busy for that.”

_Not that you’d have any clue how soulless and demanding it is, this career you forced me into._

“That’s a shame. Well regardless, we’ll see you then.”

~

Rey had just finished tying a few extra ribbons to Ben’s boxes when the bell above the door tinkled. 

She turned perhaps a little too quickly, catching the starry-eyed look in his eyes when he first saw her. 

“Hi,” Rey said, smiling like a lighthouse. She’d unwittingly cut their last evening together short, and knew the onus would be on her this time, to make the terms crystal clear. She had a sneaking suspicion his phone call when he placed the second order had been made with a different intention, which had then become buried under his nerves. 

“Good evening,” he said, then immediately winced at himself. Rey couldn’t help a slight giggle. 

“Always Mr. Serious Lawyer, just like I said,” Rey teased, as Ben shut the door and came fully into the shop. He unbuttoned his coat and unwound his scarf. 

Everything he wanted to say bubbled up in his throat. He’d combed through various declarations and endearments on his walk here, reminding himself with growing urgency that if he didn’t gather his courage tonight, then he’d walk out of her shop with boxes and no reason to see her again.

Looking at her now, everything tangled together in his throat. 

He only felt relaxed when he was around her. Looking at her felt like the first time he’d breathed properly in years. The minute he’d walked in and seen her, all his problems had been left out in the cold. When he was near her, he felt like a different person.

A person who might, one day, know what it was to be happy.

Before any of those words could fight their way from his mouth, Rey turned and bustled around behind the shop counter. She turned back around with two small boxes in her hands, each one decorated with an almost comically massive bow, twice the size of the box.

Ben laughed, forgetting even his struggle to express how desperately he wanted to see her again. Rey preened to see his smile. The rest of his face always seemed caught off guard by it.

She wanted to see his smile all the time. Even more – She wanted to be the reason for it. 

Rey beckoned him over to the counter, before lifting the lid on one of the boxes. Ben came over and leaned in curiously. 

“This is the one for your mother.”

Rey carefully lifted out the ornament for Ben’s examination. Ben could only stare, heedless to the way his mouth fell open slightly in wonder. 

The large bauble was made of frosted glass, the white paint dabbed on so lightly and lovingly that light twinkled right through it. Silver glitter was dusted over it, and swirling patterns had been painted in the warmest shade of red Ben had ever seen. Somehow, he felt heated from within at just the sight of it. 

In awe, he extended his hands to carefully take the ornament between his fingers.

“It’s beautiful, Rey. Truly perfect.”

Rey couldn’t help beaming, her chest swelling with pleasure and pride.

Ben looked up at her, easily returning her smile. 

“Every year I bring wine on Christmas. But when she opens this? This will stop her in her tracks. We’ve fallen into terrible habits over the last few years, never listening to each other… But maybe this will finally let us have a real conversation. Things will be different this year. ”

“I hope so. I hope that it helps.”

“Rey…” Ben set the ornament down carefully in the box, before turning to her with an earnest, wide-open look that made Rey’s breath catch. “There’s something about you that makes me feel… not myself around you. But rather, like someone I’d like to be. Someone who can actually talk about these things for once, because God knows I’ve kept everything bottled up for so long, I must have certainly been near a breakdown.”

And now Ben found himself past the point of no return. Once again, he felt outside of himself – Strangely removed from his usual insecurities, as he looked into Rey’s eyes and saw reflected back only the man he thought maybe he could be, for her. 

He stepped closer, until Rey had to tilt her head back to keep her gaze locked with his, and Ben could see her lips part slightly with his proximity…

“But then I saw you through the window, decorating your tree,” Ben whispered, “And maybe I’m just imagining this connection – Whatever it is that makes me trust you so much…”

Rey hurried to stop him, reaching up to lay a finger across his lips. She felt his warm breath against her finger; His eyes watching her in a mix of surprise and worry that yes, perhaps he had only imagined every inexplicable but magnetic pulse between them.

But Rey stopped him only because she knew she couldn’t let him say it all. She had to make her own part clear, so he would never have a reason to doubt – Not with her.

She stroked her thumb beneath his lower lip once, very gently. “Open your second box,” she murmured.

Ben took a long time looking away from Rey’s eyes, finally shifting his attention to the box still packaged on the counter. Rey withdrew her hand, and only then could Ben pull the box towards him and unwrap the multitude of bows she’d affixed. 

His hands were already coated in glitter, by the time he lifted the lid off. From inside, he lifted out a smaller bauble covered in an intricate, deep green pattern that appeared to snake around the ornament like vines. Ben squinted at the pattern for a moment, until he noticed the tiny white buds painted among the leaves. He quickly looked to Rey for confirmation.

She gave him that sweet, boundless smile that made his heart defy gravity.

“Mistletoe,” Rey whispered, as if she didn’t quite trust her voice. “When I said the other night that I was working it into one of your orders, _this_ is what I meant.” Rey slid still closer to him, until she was practically standing against him, feeling the warmth of his broad body. “The whole night, I was just _waiting_ for you to kiss me.”

Ben breathed like it hurt him. He set Rey’s handcrafted work back in its bed of tissue paper, before his glitter-coated fingers fluttered to cup Rey’s face. His fingertips danced across her jaw, then her cheeks, and Rey immediately closed her eyes, smiling automatically as she leaned closer to him in coveted relief. 

Then Ben bent down and finally caught her lips with his. One hand drifting down to her neck and his other behind her head, he kissed her with gentle, wondrous veneration. She sighed into his mouth in unmistakable resolution. 

Finally, _finally_ , Rey reached up to sink her fingers into Ben’s dark, thick hair. That hair she had yearned to touch just as badly as she’d wanted to kiss those lovely lips. And they were lovely, moving in slow caresses against her own… The loveliest thing Rey could stand to imagine. 

One kiss, and Ben knew he would never be the same. How could he ever again feel helpless or out of control of his own life, when Rey had waited for this of him? When Rey _wanted him_?

When Rey was the first person in ages to see him clearly, and smiled at him with all the light in the world – Just as he was. Himself.

Perhaps that was what possessed him to ask her something that would likely have humiliated him in any other situation, at any other time. 

“Would you come to my parents’ with me on Christmas?” Rey pulled back from him slightly, her mouth falling open in question before Ben promptly added, “I promise we’ll have a proper first date beforehand.”

Rey reached up to stroke the backs of her fingers down Ben’s cheek. 

“You’ll take me on a date, first?”

“Tonight, if you want.”

“I do. Maybe tonight you’ll actually _realize_ it’s a date. Or will you ask me to make you another order instead?”

Ben flushed slightly red, blinking quickly in attempt to hide his embarrassment. Rey laughed and couldn’t regret teasing him. In laughing apology, she looped her arms up around his shoulders and nuzzled close against his neck. She felt him breathe out a chuckle, and then his arms came around her in full. They were just as big and warm as Rey had imagined, wrapping her up completely. She felt his lips brush against her hair.

Something foreign and yet wonderful touched Rey’s heart.

“You know what else I’ve wanted?” Rey whispered, her voice half hidden in Ben’s chest. 

“What?”

“To spend Christmas Day at some big family’s house. Like in movies.”

Ben breathed out in a rush, cradling Rey more tightly against him. His heart fractured open again, like it did the other night when Rey had said, ‘None of them were really home.’

Ben rested his chin atop her head, tucking her in as close to him as he could. 

“My family’s nothing too special,” he told her softly. “It will probably just be my parents and my Uncle, maybe a few other people Mother invites. And you know all our dysfunctional problems…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rey said immediately, nuzzling in closer to his chest. “A family’s a family. All things can be mended.”

Had anyone else said that to him, the other version of himself Ben already felt so distant from would undoubtedly have laughed in their face. But now, coming from Rey, when he’s holding her and he feels her words and their warm vibrations right there against his chest, it’s the truth. It’s the clarity of sunlight piercing through lingering fog, until only blue skies remain. 

~

On Christmas Day, Ben’s parents froze on the doorstep, all their usual pleasantries and pedantics forgotten when they saw the young woman at their son’s side. 

“Ben,” his mother chided, “You said you weren’t…”

“I know, but things happened since then.” Ben squeezed Rey’s hand, where they hung clasped together. “This is my girlfriend, Rey.”

Rey gave a smile, though perhaps one a bit more wobbly and self-conscious than the ones she reserved for Ben.

“It’s lovely to meet you both. Sorry for the surprise appearance…”

Leia gathered herself just in time. “Nonsense! We’re glad to have you. Do come in, honey…” She gathered Rey in a brief hug as Rey came into the house. Ben smiled at the sight, breathing out in relief. 

He’d been more nervous today on Rey’s behalf – Hoping his family would be sufficiently welcoming, despite the surprise. 

When they opened presents, Leia’s expression lifted in wonder when she unwrapped her box from Ben. 

“Ben, it’s… splendid. The most beautiful in my entire collection.”

A long moment later, she looked over at her son, as if seeing him with renewed eyes. 

He gave his mother a hopeful smile. “Rey made it, actually. That’s… how we met.” 

Leia’s attention swiveled to Rey. “You made this?” she asked in disbelief.

“Well, I decorated it, yes,” Rey said sheepishly. “I have a home-made decorations and home ware shop.”

Leia reached across to clasp Rey’s hand in hers, while turning a jokingly stern expression upon her son.

“Ben, marry this girl.”

Ben turned red to his ears. “Mother!”

Later, during dessert, Han asked Ben about work. This time, he and Leia truly listened, as Ben haltingly began telling them all the reasons he was so unhappy in the profession. Rey held his hand beneath the table, silently reminding him that he would get through this. Of course he would. There were more important things in the world. 

~

They married within the year. After often watching Rey in her crafting and woodworking, Ben built a wall hanging with the words “Marry me?” nailed across in multicolored wooden letters. It was truly hideous, but Rey burst into tears when he presented it to her. Even before properly answering him, she rushed to find a place to hang it. 

When Rey fled from the room, Ben was left alone for a long, nerve-wracking spell, wondering frantically if Rey had been overcome by her emotions or by his poor craftsmanship. Until Rey finally bustled back into the room, tears still in her eyes, and fell upon him, kissing his face and avowing, “Yes, yes, yes.”

A few months following the wedding, they settled into a new flat Ben bought for the two of them in a quiet Notting Hill neighborhood. Ben had accompanied Rey to the meeting with her landlord, when she announced she’d be moving out of her old flat but still keeping the shop. Ben had taken the liberty of listing the many statutes under which Rey could file suits against him, should he keep hiking up the rates without due notice. Rey had no further trouble with her rent.

Soon thereafter, Ben quit his job to become the co-owner of Rey’s shop with her. Before long, Ben was drafting contracts to set Rey up with commission orders from department stores. 

Within a few short years, Rey got a display exhibited in Harrods. When Ben showed her the draft services agreement Harrods sent over a month later, offering Rey a permanent sales counter there, Rey shrieked and almost sent Ben tumbling to the floor with the speed of her leaping embrace. (Selfridges would send a similar offer six months later.)

Ben laughed with her and twirled her once in their small kitchen. He added with a touch of seriousness, “You’ll have to give me a day to review the agreement before we send it back, just to make sure it’s fair to you.”

Through her grin, Rey teased, “Still my Ultra-Serious Lawyer.”

Ben dipped down to kiss her deeply. When he pulled back, the life in his eyes and lightness of his smile made Rey reassess.

“Maybe not so serious any more. But still always mine.”


End file.
